When Aiken food oracle Robert Heilig, Jr. learned I went to The Monkey Store, he asked if I had come up with a word to describe the curiously named enterprise on Columbia Highway this side of Ridge Spring. Being a consummate wordsmith, he lamented, "'Unique' just doesn't have enough firepower."
Agreed! I was tempted to suggest "extremely unique" … until the voice of my high school English teacher floated from the past to remind me that nothing can be extremely unique. There are no degrees of uniqueness. Something is unique or it is not. The Monkey Store is. But as Robert suggested, that word doesn't begin to describe its wackadoodle personality.
Yes, this is a restaurant review, and I will get to the food shortly. But it would be wrong not to note that there always has been more to this roadside attraction, starting with the pet monkeys who resided here decades ago. Today, beyond breakfast, lunch, cold beer and miscellaneous groceries, inventory includes deer corn, squeegee blades, silicone-nipple baby pacifiers, bee traps and cans of live red worms that advise "Keep 'em cool. Keep 'em happy."
At the back of the store below a pegboard display of lures, sinkers and hooks is the dining table. That's right: one lone dining table that might seat six if you could round up that many chairs from around the room. The dearth of seats means most orders are carry-out. Dishware is disposable.
To get something to eat, you step to the counter, order, then stand back while Jesse McGlocklin (who took over operations last October) and his helpmates go to work. The collection of customers hovering around waiting for food is as diverse as the human race, maybe more so, including barefoot yokels and button-down bourgeois, country squires and country bumpkins, peripatetic foodies on the prowl and regulars who appear like clockwork.
The breakfast menu includes egg sandwiches and sausage wraps (the wrap is a slice of bread) as well as an eggs-and-grits bowl topped with massive amounts of ham, sausage, bacon or baloney.
For lunch, hamburger patties are broader than the bun and thoroughly cooked. Garnishes and condiments, applied in abundance, provide welcome lubrication.
A stripe of beefy chili adds interest to Crayola-red hot dogs; but the more satisfying encased meat option is sausage: onion, hot or smoked. They're comely links, plump and juice-bursting.
French fries are straight-cut on premises and emerge from the fry basket floppy. Those who crave the crunch of twice-fried spuds won't like them; but if oil-enhanced potato flavor is what's sought, they fill the bill.
Beyond ordinary sandwiches, including well-stacked BLTs, The Monkey Store offers liver pudding and such uncommon lunch meats as souse and liver cheese. Cold cuts are sliced to order and assembled as you wish, in mountainous salads as well as in sandwiches.
One sandwich customer announces he wants his baloney sliced thick — "at least 1/2 inch!" — then deep-fried to a crisp. Now, that is unique.
Nota bene: It's easy to have a meal for under $10.
The Monkey Store: 3441 Columbia Highway North, Ridge Spring, S.C. 803-687-2520
